On Virtual Reality and Plato's Cave

 Something I've often considered is whether, upon hypothetically discovering that I am actually inhabiting a world simulation, would I consent to being "unplugged" from the simulation. We know from the old story of Plato's Cave (and modern retellings of it like The Matrix) that those with a philosophical impulse should consent to being unplugged; if only so that they may discover what is really real, in contrast to the world of appearances.

But this doesn't seem so clearcut to me. For example, if I were told that upon being unplugged I would never get to see my family members again (we can suppose that they are really just computer simulations), then I would certainly not want to be unplugged. I surely would want to discover the world of reality (as it were), but I personally do value the experiences I have had and may have in the future with my family than I do with what I may potentially discover after being unplugged.

And it doesn't even have to be that specific: if I were told that the world of reality is an atemporal world, but that upon being unplugged I would experience an eternal moment of bliss (a sort of secularized beatific vision), I still wouldn't want to be unplugged. To be sure, I do desire to inhabit a world of unending bliss, but I would say that a temporalized version of this is much preferable to an atemporal version.

And this all makes sense from a Transhumanist standpoint: one of the goals we often hear from various Transhumanists concerns the desire for mind uploading. This, I take it, expresses a philosophical view that that certain experiences as such are more valuable. So "taking the blue pill" needn't be seen as willful ignorance, for it can also express a profound philosophical tendency, rooted in the value of experience as such.

Perfectionism: Towards Transhumanist Ethical Convergence?

I've been pondering over several topics during my long hiatus from posting to this blog, but one thing that has been top of mind concerns the question how transhumanists of consequentialist, deontological, and virtue-theoretic persuasions can find common ground in the interest of achieving our goals. This it seems to me is of prime importance especially given the uphill battle we are already fighting to win public acceptance.

The idea of ethical convergence has certainly been explored in other domains and from several different perspectives, but the issue for transhumanists is particularly challenging due to the end goals we are trying to reach (the so-called '3 Supers'): Super-intelligence, Super-happiness, and Super-longevity. To be sure, there are variants of all the three ethical theories in question in which these goals can function very well as motivating factors, but to achieve theoretical convergence we will need to find some common notion that we all can appeal to and that still fits within our framework of choice.

We will surely need to approach this problem from a variety of angles but one thing we can do to come up with ideas is to revisit the work of the godfather of transhumanism: namely Descartes. Even though his most influential ideas were in epistemology and metaphysics, Descartes did write some very fascinating work in ethics.

The IEP article on Descartes' Ethics sums up his main ideas here quite nicely as follows:

"the supreme good consists in virtue, which is a firm and constant resolution to use the will well; virtue presupposes knowledge of metaphysics and natural philosophy; happiness is the supreme contentment of mind which results from exercising virtue; the virtue of generosity is the key to all the virtues and a general remedy for regulating the passions; and virtue can be secured even though our first-order moral judgments never amount to knowledge."

How to characterize these theses within ethical typologies? An obvious approach is to characterize this as a sort of virtue-theoretic ethic. Indeed, this might even seem like a kind of virtue ethic par excellence, given that Descartes accords virtue itself as the highest good (in stark contrast to schools of virtue ethics in ancient philosophy and their contemporary descendants who accord that title to happiness, human flourishing, etc.).

But note also Descartes' unique understanding of what virtue is: "a firm and constant resolution to use the will well". This has a distinctly deontological (indeed almost a Kantian) ring to it, which has led Noa Naaman-Zauderer to characterize Descartes as a deontological virtue ethicist.

This is already a quite interesting development, but we should note again another point of departure Descartes' makes from classical virtue theory. I can do no better here in elaborating this point than to quote en masse from the IEP article:

"Frans Svensson (2010; compare 2019a) has argued that Descartes is not a virtue ethicist, and that other commentators have mistakenly classified him as such due to a misunderstanding of the criteria of virtue ethics. Recall that Shapiro and Naaman-Zauderer claim that Descartes must be a virtue ethicist (of whatever stripe) due to his claim that virtue is the supreme good. However, Svensson claims that virtue ethics, deontological ethics, and consequential ethics alike can, strictly speaking, admit that virtue is the supreme good, in the sense that virtue should be the goal in all of our actions (2010: 217). Descartes’ account of the supreme good, then, does not make him a virtue ethicist.

The criterion for being a virtue ethicist is that “morally right conduct should be grounded ultimately in an account of virtue or a virtuous agent” (Ibid. 218). This requires an explanation of the nature of virtue that does not depend on some independent account of morally right conduct. The problem, however, is that although Descartes agrees that virtue can be explained without reference to some independent account of morally right conduct, Descartes departs from the virtue ethicist in that he thinks that virtue is not constitutive of morally right conduct.

Instead, Svensson proposes that Descartes is committed to perfectionism. In this view, what Descartes’ ethics demands is that the moral agent pursue “everything in his power in order to successfully promote his own overall perfection as far as possible” (Ibid. 221). As such, Svensson claims that Descartes’ ethics is “outcome-based, rather than virtue-based, and it is thus best understood as a kind of teleological, or even consequentialist ethics” (Ibid. 224)."

And it is just this idea, viz. Perfectionism, that I think is worth exploring. Granted, it isn't amenable to ethical convergence as is (for one thing, it doesn't as yet make room for deontological notions of moral duties independent of outcome), but it is worth a start. For aren't we really as Transhumanists just trying to promote the perfection not only of humanity, but also also sentient beings and ultimately the universe?

Marginal Cases and Wild Animals

 
Most pleasingly, the movement to bring wild animals into the sphere of moral consideration has been gaining much traction within the vegan movement. But needless to say, the central concern among vegans remains that of domesticated animals (or otherwise animals that are very directly involved with humans in some capacity). In this post, I would like to provide some philosophical ammunition to those vegans who are concerned with the plight of wild animals.

I would like us to avoid approaching this topic from any sort of environmentalist perspective (as I've noted before, I'm quite skeptical of the environmentalist movement to put it mildly). Instead, I propose that we think of this issue from the perspective of defending the interest of individual wild animals. In particular, I want us to think about this topic from the perspective of the Argument from Marginal Cases (AMC).

To briefly recap, the AMC goes something like this:

PREMISE 1: Assume that some property F that nonhuman animals lack (such as complex intelligence, moral agency, the ability to appreciate art, the ability to feel romantic attachment) is the sole determiner of moral status.

PREMISE 2: Some humans as a matter of fact do not possess F.

CONCLUSION 1: Some humans (i.e. marginal cases) do not have moral status.

PREMISE 3: But, the aforementioned marginal humans actually do have moral status.

PREMISE 4: If the aforementioned marginal humans do have moral status, then nonhuman animals also have moral status.

CONCLUSION 2: Nonhuman animals have moral status.

This much is well-known. One of the upshots of the argument is that it affords us a sort "test" which can help us in determining how we ought to act towards nonhuman animals in a given scenario. More particularly, when we find ourselves in a moral conundrum regarding nonhuman animals we can ask ourselves how we should behave in a similar situation with the nonhuman animals replaced by marginal humans. Our answer to the latter question will determine our answer to the former.

But note that this test can easily go the other way around: we can appeal to our moral obligations to marginal humans in a given scenario to determine our moral obligations to nonhuman animals in a similar scenario. To see how this works, let us consider one hypothetical case.

Suppose that we have some planet called "Urth" which is similar to ours except for one notable difference: marginal humans on Urth are abandoned to live in the wild once they reach a certain age. Marginal humans on Urth face all the same problems that wild nonhuman animals face on Earth: predation, disease, natural disasters, etc.

Now let us suppose that there is a growing human rights movement on Urth which at first was solely concerned with the plight of "domesticated" humans, but which overtime had a growing contingent of people who expressed concern over the plight of wild marginal humans. But as this growing movement becomes more vocal, they face a harsh backlash from the mainstream sectors of the human rights movement. They are told that we should only be concerned with the rights of domesticated humans and that the appropriate course of action with respect to marginal humans is to "do nothing".

We might imagine that they offer the same sorts of justifications that current mainstream vegans offer for why we should ignore the plight of wild animals: nature in itself is good, this is the way of life that is best suited to wild marginal humans, to try and do something about it might lead to disastrous consequences for the planet, etc.

What would we think about such people? Surely they are displaying at best some moral deficiency, and at worst they are literally committing evil acts by trying to stop any efforts to address the plight of these wild marginal humans? If that's the case, then it is the moral duty of humans on Urth to do what they can to reduce (or even eliminate) the suffering of wild marginal humans.

But if it is morally obligatory to do this in our hypothetical example, then by the AMC it is morally obligatory for us to do what we can to reduce and hopefully eliminate the suffering of wild nonhuman animals. To suggest otherwise will ultimately come down to rank speciesism.

So as I hope to have made clear, the duty to address the plight of wild animals falls directly out of the AMC. Thus, vegans needn't worry about sullying their hands with any of the untoward elements of environmentalism: for the imperative to reduce wild animal suffering is a natural consequence of the concern for individual sentient animals that is a hallmark of vegan philosophy.

Moral Realism and the Oracle

 In this post, I should like to explore a very interesting dilemma lying at the heart of moral realism. The dilemma is fleshed out by two arguments which point out the same problem, but in different ways. Indeed, if the arguments driving this dilemma are cogent, then it would seem that moral realism as a metaethical theory is in serious trouble and either should be substantially revised or completely abandoned.

First off, just what is moral realism? Moral realism, as we understand it, is a metaethical theory which makes 2 key claims:

    1. Moral judgments are objectively true or false, independently of any human
       attitudes or activities
    2. Moral judgments are true or false in virtue of the existence of moral facts
       in the world

To be sure, there are many different kinds of moral realism on offer; a notable distinguishing factor among them being just how they cash out exactly what objective moral facts are supposed to be (are they natural facts or non-natural facts?, etc.). The specific flavor of moral realism doesn't matter for our purposes, since the arguments we will be discussing attack all varieties that meet the 2 criteria mentioned above.

So to begin, imagine you are confronted by the Oracle, a being who is both all-knowing and who never lies (rather like the character from The Matrix). Suppose the Oracle tells you "There are neither moral facts nor objective moral truths". What sort of effects would this have on your life? Arguably, this revelation would have no effect at all on your everyday practices. For all intents and purposes, you might very well go on living as if there were moral facts. Thus, it would seem that the existence or nonexistence of moral facts really plays no bearing on your moral practice, and thus any beliefs you have in their existence should be abandoned, in the interest of theoretical simplicity.

I think 2 different conclusions follow from this argument. One is that the truth-value of moral realism is irrelevant when it comes to leading a moral life. Following from this, we can conclude therefore that a belief in moral realism is also not needed to live a moral life. And if moral realism is not needed to live a moral life, then by Occam's Razor, we should reject moral realism and seek a more elegant metaethic (one that doesn't populate the world with any extra entities).

But now let us change the scenario. Imagine instead that the Oracle says "There are moral facts and objective moral truths." Naturally, the next step is for us to ask her what these objective moral truths are. Her answer is shocking, for she says "In order to be a good person, you must cause the maximal amount of suffering possible to the maximal number of non-human animals for pleasure". How do we respond now? It seems to me that the only reasonable course of action is to refuse to live in this manner, and to continue living in accord with my own values.


When we combine the two arguments presented above we find ourselves confronted with a dilemma. On the one hand, if moral realism is false then it doesn't play any role in determining our moral practices. On the other hand though, if moral realism is true then it still doesn't play any role in determining our moral practices since the objective moral truths can be radically antithetical to our own values. Therefore, whether moral realism is true or false, it needn't play any role in determining our moral practices, and thus it should be rejected (by Occam's Razor).

How might one try to avoid this dilemma? One way that comes to mind for me is this: If we reflect on the nature of objective moral facts, it would seem that if they existed then they would exist necessarily (and it would be the same particular set of moral facts which exist necessarily). Inversely, if objective moral facts did not exist then it would be impossible for them to exist. Therefore, the moral realist could say something like the following: "This isn't really a problem because both horns of the dilemma are proposing an impossibility. On the one hand, it cannot possibly be the case that objective moral facts do not exist. On the other hand, it is not possible for there to be an objective moral fact that obligates us to cause the maximal amount of suffering for the maximal number of non-human animals for pleasure. Thus this dilemma need not concern us."

In my opinion, this response doesn't work because it is based on a mistaken logical theory. Even granted that moral facts are either necessarily existent or necessarily nonexistent (which seems reasonable enough), that doesn't mean we can't reflect on impossible scenarios. Indeed, given an ultramodal logic we can  do this very easily. For instance, it is presumably a necessary truth that "It is either raining outside right now or it is not raining outside right now." Even so, this does not stop us from reflecting on what would be the case in those worlds where this isn't true (relevant logic modelings provide a very natural way to do this). So the proponent of this kind of objection needs to make a case for why it isn't rational to reflect on impossible scenarios.

Another possible response would be to say something like "Even granted that this dilemma is sound, we should continue on with believing in moral realism because a widespread rejection of that doctrine could plausibly lead to disastrous social ills. While moral philosophers and other reflective people might not be affected in any deep way by rejecting moral realism, the common man might radically shift his every day practices such that he now behaves without any regard for moral constraints."

I see 2 problems with this response. Firstly, it is merely an instance of the appeal to consequences fallacy. Even assuming that the conclusion of an argument would have objectionable consequences, it does not follow that the argument itself is thereby unsound. Secondly, it makes an empirical claim which seems far from obvious. Is it really plausible to believe that the only thing preventing most people from acting in a totally capricious way is a widespread belief in moral realism? Based purely on anecdotal experience, it seems to me that at least a good portion of laymen believe in something like moral relativism (think of the commonplace appeals against "imposing one's beliefs on others", or the common remark that "you have your opinion and I have my opinion"). Thus, it is not at all obvious to me that such harms would befall humanity if there was a widespread rejection of moral realism.

So it seems as if we are indeed faced with a real dilemma. Assuming there is no way around it, what options do we have left in metaethics? Quite a lot, actually. For one thing, we have the vast plethora of views in the camp of moral anti-realism: subjectivism, error theory, and the various non-cognitivist views being some among them. And stepping outside of realism/anti-realism altogether we have the various constructivist metaethical systems. So I think that even if this dilemma does prove moral realism to be untenable in the end, we still can engage in serious metaethical work.

Meinong, Russell, and the Medievals

The Austrian philosopher Alexius Meinong formulated a wide-ranging metaphysical/semantic theory which is intended to address many issues of fundamental importance; particularly issues to do with existence, reference, and intentionality. His theory affirmed a number of theses, some which had antecedents in the history of philosophy, and others which were truly radical. Some of the central theses are: 

Every thought has an object which is the target of that thought.

Objects need not exist.

We can make true claims about nonexistent objects.

An object possesses its characterizing properties irrespective of whether it exists.

Indeed, Meinong's theory contains a number of other distinctive theses, but these are the most important for our purposes here.

In his well-known criticism of Meinong's theory, Bertrand Russell claimed that Meinong lacked a "robust sense of reality". Russell here was drawing upon an old idea that goes all the way back to Parmenides. Put simply, Parmenides claimed that for any true statement we make, the objects which that sentence are about must actually exist. 2 corollaries of this claim are that an object can possess properties only if it is actually existent, and therefore all objects are actual existent objects. Parmenides recognized this fact and did not shirk from making these affirmations.

In the modern guise, these Parmenidean theses give rise to the logical inference known as Existential Generalization (EG). To put it in brief, EG says the following:

If we have a true sentence about an object x, then we can conclude that x actually exists.

In Parmenides' theory and the classical logic which derives from it, EG is universally valid. But it is not so for Meinong's theory. Indeed, for Meinong we can only ever conclude that an object x exists if we have premise which asserts the actual existence of x. 

Russell, and the Parmenidean tradition he is drawing upon, is appealing to an understanding of philosophy which goes back to the very beginnings of the subject; namely that philosophy must deal with what is really real. And indeed, it seems we can only do that by focusing our sights on actual existence

Now with regard to Russell's charge against him, Meinong replied in an equally dismissive manner by accusing Russell of displaying a "prejudice in favor of the actual". For Meinong, it was just obvious that not every object is an actually existent object, and therefore that EG is not universally valid. 

Meinong just like Russell is also drawing upon a time-honored conception of philosophy, which is the notion that philosophy must be absolutely unrestricted in it's application. In effect, no stone must be unturned. Or to put it differently, no object must be off-limits to philosophical analysis. Both of these ideas, viz. that philosophy must be fundamentally concerned with actual existence and that it must not limit the objects to which it can be applied, seem very sensible. But it would appear that they are fundamentally in tension with one another.

As far as the contemporary debate goes, we find ourselves in much the same scenario, with seemingly little hope of finding a way out. But in this post I would like to explore an alternative route we might take; one which is rooted in the work of the medievals. For I think medieval logic affords us a possible middle road between the Russellian and the Meinongian positions, and this might allow the 2 camps to find some common ground.

But before we begin, we need to briefly cover some important points from medieval logical theory. 

In medieval logic, every proposition (i.e. declarative sentence) is composed of 2 terms linked together by a copula. Oversimplifying a bit, a term is a word or phrase which refers to something outside of itself. Take the familiar proposition: Socrates is mortal. Here the two terms are "Socrates" & "mortal", while the copula is the word "is". 

We mentioned how terms refer to something outside of themselves. For the medievals, it was not always strictly determined just what it was that a term referred to. This could change depending upon the proposition it was a part of. And here the medievals came up with a new word, i.e. 'supposition'. Put briefly, supposition is a property of terms which determines the objects to which they refer within the context of a proposition. 

Let's consider an example. Imagine we have the following propositions:

     A. Man is a rational animal

     B. "Man" is three-lettered. 

These propositions both share a common term; namely, 'man'. But upon inspection, it is clear that 'man' in A refers to something very different than what it refers to in B. And thus we say that in A 'man' supposits for the species Homo Sapiens; but in B 'man' supposits for an English word. The other terms in the proposition allow us to determine the object to which the term supposits; for only a species is the kind of object which can be a rational animal. Likewise, only a word is the type of object which can have three letters. Indeed, the familiar notion from grammar school of context clues if helpful here. For if we are unsure which object a term refers to in a proposition, we need only use the clues provided by the rest of the proposition to answer that question.

Now as we can see, the terms in both A and B are linked together by an "is" copula, and this is important. For in medieval logic if we have a proposition in which both terms are linked together by a simple 'is'-copula, then such a proposition can only be true if both terms supposit for actually existing objects. Or to put it more explicitly:

"For any proposition of the form 'X is Y', both X and Y must be actually existing objects if the proposition is to be true."

At first glance it seems as if the medieval logician agrees with Russell, and he is just merely using some novel terminology. But this is not true, for there is another important facet of medieval logical theory; and that is the notion of ampliation. Put simply, ampliation is a process whereby the supposition of terms is expanded in some way or other. Consider the following proposition:

     C. Wooly mammoths were mammals

Clearly C is true, but not because wooly mammoths are actually existing objects. For they are long extinct, and thus they no longer exist. So how can this proposition be true? It is precisely the notion of ampliation which explains how.

Let's analyze the proposition to see how it works. As before, we have 2 terms; this time they are 'wooly mammoths' and 'mortal'. But now we have a new copula, viz. 'were'. This is the crucial difference; for this new copula is telling us that the terms of the proposition can now supposit for not only what actually exists, but also for what did exist in the past. Thus, 'wooly mammoths', as it occurs in C, supposits not for actually existing wooly mammoths (of which there aren't any), but for wooly mammoths that existed in the past. 

That is precisely what ampliation does: it expands the objects for which a term can supposit in a proposition. Can ampliation be pushed further? Yes indeed, for consider this proposition:

     D. Space elevators will be useful tools.

Suppose D is true. This clearly cannot be the case because of any present or past space elevators. Such things do not currently and have never yet existed. Rather, it is true because of the space elevators that will exist in the future. As expected, it is the "will be" copula which is doing the work here. For this new copula ampliates the supposition of the term 'space elevators' to include not only presently and past existing space elevators (of which there aren't any), but also to future space elevators. 

We've covered a lot of ground already, but let's push further. Consider now this proposition:

     E. Dragons can be larger than elephants.

E seems perfectly true. But dragons never have, do not currently, and plausibly never will exist. Nevertheless though, dragons could possibly have existed, and that is precisely the key here. For the 'can be' copula ampliates the supposition of the term to include not only present, past, and future dragons (again, of which there aren't any), but also to dragons which could possibly have existed. 

Now for most of the medievals, this was as far as they were willing to go. In their eyes, terms in a proposition could only supposit for things that are, were, will be, or can be. But a few radicals went even further. For these logicians, terms could potentially supposit for objects which could not possibly exist. 

A favorite example used in this context is a chimera. Today we imagine a chimera to be a type of creature with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a snake's tail. But the medievals had supposed chimeras to be a type of creature which is at one and the same time a lion, a goat, and snake. Clearly, it is impossible for such a creature to exist. Nevertheless, consider the following proposition:

     F. Chimeras are imagined to be monstrous creatures.

That seems perfectly true, but chimeras are necessarily nonexistent. Thus, it would appear that the "are imagined to be" copula allows terms to supposit for impossible objects. Indeed, the few medievals who went this far considered such couplae as "is imagined to be", "is conceived to be", "is understood to be", etc., to similarly allow for terms to supposit for impossible objects.

So now that we understand all of that, how does it apply to the dispute between Russell and Meinong? Well, let's consider what each of them would have said about supposition.

To do this, let us construct a list of copulae:

     1. "is"

     2. "was"

     3. "will be"

     4. "can be", "could be", "may be", etc.

     5. "is imagined to be", "is conceived to be", "is understood to be", etc.

(As a reminder, most medievals would not have recognized type-5 propositions as their own category, and would have instead just subsumed them under type-4 propositions. But we will include this more radical medieval view because it makes it much easier to accommodate Meinong's position).

And let us call a proposition with an "is"-copula a type-1 proposition. And one with a "was"-copula will be called a type-2 proposition; and so on down the line. Assuming that Russell would be comfortable with speaking of supposition (a dubious assumption indeed, but let us make it anyway), what would he say about the supposition of the terms in any given type of proposition? The answer should be clear: he would affirm that the terms for propositions of any of the 5 types must supposit only for actually existing objects. Indeed, that is in fact just a restatement of the rule EG, using medieval logical terminology.

But what would Meinong say? His view is just a radical as Russell's, but from the opposite extreme; for Meinong would say that the terms in  any type of proposition can supposit for any type of object whatsoever. So what this means is that no matter what type of proposition we are considering (even type-1 propositions), its terms could potentially supposit for all sorts of nonexistent and indeed even impossible objects.

As we have seen already, the medievals erected a middle ground between these two extremes. For they believed that the terms in different types of propositions supposit for different types of objects. Let us lay their view out in tabular form like so:

     Type-1 --> what is

     Type-2 --> what is or what was

     Type-3 --> what is, what was, or what will be

     Type-4 --> what is, what was, what will be, or what can be

     Type-5 --> what is, what was, what will be, what can be, or what cannot be

It should be clear now: where both Russell and Meinong don't discriminate among any kind of proposition, the medievals make subtle distinctions between cases. And it would also appear that the medieval's approach to this question is far more commensensical. For it would appear quite improper to arbitrarily restrict all 5 types of propositions to only actual objects; and yet, it might also appear too careless to allow for any kind of proposition, even those of type-1, to apply to even impossible objects. The medieval's view can waylay both of these worries.

And now we can see how the problem mentioned earlier (viz. how can we reconcile the view that philosophy must be concerned with actual existence with the view that philosophy must not limit the objects to which it can be applied) can be resolved. For when philosophers deal with the fundamental nature of the world they will spend most of their time dealing with type-1 propositions, and these, according to the medievals, deal only with actual existence (which satisfies what the Russellians are after). But when philosophers are dealing with questions regarding the limits of the world, the bounds of possibility, or the objects of human thought, they will need to employ propositions of types 2-5. And in these cases they will be dealing with broader classes of objects, up to and including those which could never exist (and thus satisfying the desire of the Meinongians).

So in closing, I should like to say 2 things: firstly, if we limit ourselves to the machinery of contemporary symbolic logics (whether they be classical or non-classical), the Russellian and the Meinongian will always be at loggerheads. But if we appeal to the technical machinery provided by medieval logic, then they can truly find some common ground. Secondly, I hope to have provided a glimpse of how useful the work of the medievals can be in illuminating contemporary problems in logical theory. I sincerely hopes this inspires more people to discover for themselves the marvelous riches of medieval logic.

Environmentalist Speciesism

In our time of ecological crisis, we see two movements trying to tackle the problem head-on. These are the environmentalist movement and the animal rights movement. Though these movements are certainly not equivalent, they have both seen that something is seriously wrong with the current world order and seek to attack the current problems at their source. This being the case, it might only seem eminently reasonable to propose that both of these movements should work together for a common cause. However, this is mistaken; for as I will attempt to demonstrate, the modern environmentalist movement is speciesist at the core. As vegans, we have a world view which is entirely incompatible with the environmentalist movement, making any prospect of a shared common cause very grim indeed. 

This will surely appear to be a bold claim, so let's start off with a brief lay of the land. By the 'animal rights activists', I mean vegans who are pushing for the end of all animal exploitation. Central pillars of this are opposition to hunting, animal agriculture, the use of animal skins and body parts for human benefit, and animal experimentation. By the 'environmentalist movement', I mean the mainstream activists who are attempting to curtail the causes and effects of climate change and who seek to promote environmentally sustainable ways of living. 

Stated quite plainly, it is my thesis that the animal rights movement and the environmentalist movement are fundamentally irreconcilable because the environmentalist movement supports just those exploitative practices that the animal rights activists are seeking to eliminate.

Let's consider the question of hunting. From the animal rights perspective, all individual sentient beings have a fundamental right to life, and since hunting is a violation of the right to life, hunting is an immoral act. This is standard fare in the animal rights movement, but when we turn to the environmentalist movement, we find another approach entirely. Granted, we are all aware of the work that such notable groups as the Sierra Club  and the World Wildlife Fund have done to combat illegal poaching, but we should not make the mistake of concluding that the environmentalist movement opposes hunting full-stop.

For instance, The Conservation Fund works toward saving open lands for recreational hunting. Furthermore, such notable groups as the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) openly promote hunting. The Sierra Club claims "hunting and fishing is defensible only when it is managed in a way that benefits wildlife and ecosystems," while the World Wildlife Fund "accepts or supports hunting in a very limited number of contexts where it is culturally appropriate, legal and effectively regulated, and has demonstrated environmental and community benefits".

We can see therefore that these environmentalist organizations do not believe nonhuman animals have an inalienable right to life, for they are perfectly willing to allow humans to hunt them for food/recreation just so long as this doesn't cause any damaging effects on the environment. This is quite plainly an example of speciesism, since if human interests are permitted to override the interests of nonhuman animals, then humans and nonhuman animals are not on equal footing.

The troubles don't stop there though. Quite apart from supporting hunting, such organizations as the WWF also support animal agriculture, just so long as it is performed 'sustainably' and 'responsibly'. It goes without saying that the animal rights movement is fundamentally opposed to the animal agriculture industry, because it violates numerous inalienable rights, not the least of which are the rights to life and liberty. So for us as vegans and animal rights activists, to suggest that there can exist a form of animal agriculture which is either sustainable or responsible is anathema. 

Furthermore, to suggest that the interests of nonhuman animals can be supplanted by human culinary interests is obviously speciesist. And need it also be said that if it is permitted of us to eat nonhuman animals, this can only be because we have ownership of them? 

From a related point, the vegan movement is wholly opposed as well to the various industries which use animal skins and body parts for practical purposes. Now it is only natural to think the environmentalist movement would also be opposed to this, seeing as there doesn't seem to be any sensible environmental benefit that could arise out of such use. This is quite mistaken though. For a rather shocking example, take a look at this recent initiative by Nova Scotia’s Kejimkujik National Park Seaside. Here we have, in no uncertain terms, an environmentalist organization which is quite willing to use exploit the body parts of an invasive crab species for the purpose of making an environmentally-friend alternative to plastic. Even supposing that following this plan of action would create better outcomes for the environment, it is wholly objectionable from the animal rights perspective, since the interests of these crabs are being violated. 

But these are not at all the worst things the environmentalist movement has done against the interest of animals. For the most damning action the major environmental organizations have done is to directly support animal experimentation. The major culprits in these atrocities are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the WWF, but many other such organizations have also participated. Some experiments that such organizations are involved in include chemical tests, neurotoxicity tests, and endocrinological tests (to name few). These experiments are often directly funded and sometimes even conducted by the organizations themselves. (To research this in further detail, please visit the Animal Ethics webpage on this subject).

It goes without saying that the animal rights movement is fundamentally opposed to animal experimentation. So the fact that the major environmentalist organizations are in support of this practice demonstrates that the two movements are directly opposed. To treat animals as means to an end in experiments is a profound affront to their interests. 

So to conclude, it is my considered view that any collaboration between the animal rights movement and mainstream environmentalism has very grim prospects, and is therefore ultimately undesirable.  But clearly vegans must have a plan to do with the environmental crisis, since merely avoiding the use of animal products is insufficient. In my view, the best option here is the use of advanced technologies both to reduce wild animal suffering and to heal the environment. In this way, we can directly address the ecological crisis while respecting the rights of individual animals. 

On the Characterization Postulate

I often mention the characterization postulate on this blog, and since it is such an important tool in object theories of all sorts, I figure it is time to provide a brief overview of just what it is supposed to be.

So why do object theorists need a characterization postulate (CP)? Well, the answer is because such a postulate is required for the epistemological adequacy of object theory. Existent objects do not pose a problem, because we can discover the properties of these by extensional means, i.e. through the use of empirical evidence. But such a procedure is for the most part unavailable for us when it comes to nonexistent objects. I say "for the most part" because we can indeed discover some properties of nonexistent objects through such means as dreams or hallucinations, but these procedures are not at all exhaustive.

So what we require is a logical, e.g. a priori, means to discern the properties of nonexistent objects, and this is where the CP comes in. In essence, the CP is a logical tool which allows us to do that. To express how important it is to object theory, the CP appears quite early in the process of logical construction. Indeed, once we have added descriptors to zero-order logic we can already bring the CP into play (but we needn't go into the technical details of that here).

But I should note that I have been writing as if the CP is one unique thing. This, however, is untrue; for we have many different CPs. The most natural one is the Unrestricted Characterization Postulate (UCP). This runs as follows:

UCP: An object has exactly those properties it is characterized as having.

This is quite natural and does a lot of work. Indeed, it is surely the first CP that comes to mind for the object theorist, and it is no doubt used in much argument and informal reasoning. But unfortunately, the UCP cannot be true tout court. This is for one very simple but devastating reason: namely, it allows us to prove the existence of any object whatsoever.

Consider the following object: "The existent non self-identical spider-eyed lamb". Let's call this object L. By the UCP, it follows that L is existent. But it is obvious that L is non-existent (it violates the law of identity). Therefore, the UCP is false.

Now one might think we can get around this problem by somehow weakening our logic, by analogy to how we can avoid the paradoxes of naive set theory by weakening the underlying logic. But this option is not available to us, for the problematic consequences of the UCP do not depend upon any axioms or inference rules; rather, they only depend upon the presence of descriptors (e.g. term forming operators like "a", "an", "the", etc.) And since eliminating descriptors from our logic is completely out of the question, we must look elsewhere for solutions.

So it is clear the UCP doesn't work. What is the object theorist to do? Well, he could very well just persevere with the UCP. In effect, he would have to use heuristic rules in order to avoid the untoward consequences. No doubt this can certainly be done (and indeed there is an analogy with how many of the textbooks for classical logic make use of naive set theory, even though naive set theory paired with classical logic leads to triviality), but such a route puts the object theorist on unsure logical footing.

Thus, it would seem that a better option would be to suitably restrict the CP. A radical restriction is what we might call the Existential Characterization Postulate (ECP).
This is as follows:

ECP: If an object exists, then it has exactly those properties it is characterized as having.

The ECP is surely true and quite unobjectionable. Indeed, it is true under the mainstream philosophical theories such as empiricism, idealism, and materialism. But for a full object theory the ECP will not do. For it is both far too restrictive (in that it tells us nothing about nonexistent objects) and it is technically redundant (since we already have empirical means at our disposal for discerning the properties of existent objects). So we will need to look elsewhere to find a CP that does some real work.

One way to do so is by expanding the ECP to what we might call the Possibilist Characterization Postulate (PCP). This runs as follows:

PCP: If an object is possible, then it has exactly those properties it is characterized as having.

This will no doubt appear quite attractive to philosophers of a rationalist persuasion. But while it might seem to be a real advance upon the ECP (since now we are able to do real work in discerning the properties of nonexistent objects),this is merely illusory. For, in one sense, the PCP is too restrictive; but it another sense, it is far too permissive.

Let us first consider how it is too restrictive, by referring back to our old friend L. What does the PCP tell us about this? Well nothing at all; because L is an impossible object, and the PCP tells us only about possible objects. Now of course, the rationalist object theorist won't actually consider this to be a weakness, since for him no object is impossible. But the advantages that consideration of impossible objects bring (which are too numerous to go into fully here, but they include such benefits as a resolution of the semantic paradoxes) makes this in my opinion an unacceptable stance to take.

Secondly, the PCP is too permissive because it still allows for the unacceptable ontological arguments mentioned earlier, although of course only restricted to possible objects. For the existent golden mountain (call it M) is certainly a possible object. So by the PCP, M exists. Indeed, it seems that something like the PCP is at work in both Descartes' ontological argument and in the principle of plenitude (viz. the notion that every possible object exists).

Of course, we can duly restrict the PCP, leading to what we might call the Qualified Possiblist Characterization Postulate (QPCP), which runs as:

If an object is possible and does not exist, then it has exactly those properties it is characterized as having.

The QPCP certainly gets rid of the untoward ontological consequences of the PCP, but it is still too restrictive. The classical rationalist who wants to avoid the ontological argument and the principle of plenitude will no doubt rest easy with it. But I think we can do better,

Now, instead of restricting the CP by only applying it only to certain types of items (as the previous postulates do), we can restrict it in other ways too. One quite natural way is by applying it only to certain types of properties. A familiar distinction among object theories is that between nuclear and extranuclear properties. In brief, nuclear properties are ordinary properties of individuals. In other words, they are just those features which delineate what we might call the 'nature' or the 'essence' of an object, while extranuclear properties do not. Alternatively, we might say that nuclear properties apply directly to the object, whilst extranuclear properties in some sense depend upon the object's nuclear properties.
Such a distinction may appear ad-hoc to some, but it actually has a clear pedigree within the philosophical tradition; refer to Kant's distinction between determining and non-determining predicates, or to the Frege-Russell distinction between first-level and second-level functions.

Perhaps the simplest way to lay out this distinction is to list some examples. Standard nuclear properties include such garden variety properties as 'red', 'tall', 'kicked', walked', etc. Extranuclear properties include such things as: ontological properties (viz. 'existent', 'nonexistent'), logical properties ('is consistent', 'is inconsistent'), status properties ('is contingent', 'is impossible',) and converse intentional properties ('is thought about by Larry,' 'is dreamed of by Ron',).

With this distinction in mind we can now formulate a Nuclear Characterization Postulate (NCP), delineated as:

An object has only the nuclear properties it is characterized as having.

It is clear that the NCP allows us to completely avoid the problem of being able to simply define objects into existence (since existence is an extranuclear property) and it is also expansive enough to account for impossible objects. So as a theoretical device the NCP is quite attractive, but it does have its own problems. The first problem is that it leads to untoward consequences concerning relations between existent and nonexistent objects. Consider the fact that Sherlock Holmes lives at 221 Baker Street. By the NCP, Holmes inhabits 221 Baker Street. But Baker Street is an existent object, and it was never inhabited by Holmes, since it is verifiable through empirical means that it never contained Sherlock Holmes as a resident.

For a natural way around this difficulty, we can formulate a Qualified Nuclear Characterization Postulate (QNCP), as follows:

An object has only the one-place nuclear properties it is characterized as having.

Naturally, the QNCP requires that we have some means at our disposal to reduce multi-place predicates to one-place properties. There are several ways to do that, and we needn't go into the technicalities here. But suffice it to say, it is clear that if Holmes has the one-place property 'inhabits-221-Baker-Street', it does not follow that 221 Baker Street has the on-place property 'is-inhabited-by-Sherlock-Holmes', since one-place predicates generally do not imply other one-place predicates, unless we have suitable axioms or meaning postulates in place.

But, as should be no surprise by now, there is yet a further problem lurking in the background, and indeed, it's a problem facing all the previous postulates. Namely, how are we to distinguish between such objects as 'the round square' and 'the existent round square'? The QNCP does not tell us whether these characterizing descriptions denote separate objects or one and the same object. One route we can take is to simply delete the extranuclear property of 'existent' from the second characterization, and conclude that both descriptions denote one and the same object.

But we can also avoid the problem by a new and expanded characterization postulate. We might call this the Suppositional Characterization Postulate (SCP). This is as follows:

An object has the one-place nuclear properties it is characterized as having and for every extranuclear predicate P it is characterized as having, it presents itself as having P.

The idea in its fleshed-out form is due to Routley, but it has roots going all the way back to Meinong's notion of "watered-down properties". Essentially, what we are doing here is systematically producing nuclear analogues of extra-nuclear properties. We can easily see how the above problem is then solved: the existent round square presents itself as existing, while the round square does not.

It seems that we might have pushed the characterization postulate as far as it will go. SCP doesn't appear to run into the types of untoward consequences which the previous CPs ran into, and at a first glance it appears that we cannot extend it any further without running into the triviality problem of the UCP. But that is actually not the case, for there is indeed a CP that is equal in scope to the UCP, but which does not run into triviality. This is the Qualified Characterization Postulate (QCP). It runs as follows:

An item has all the properties it is characterized as having at some world or other.

The QCP really does all the work which the UCP tries to do, except that work is made logically tractable through worlds semantics. It is important to note that the worlds in use here are not merely restricted to the possible worlds of modal semantics; rather, the QCP makes full use of ultramodal worlds, such as incomplete, inconsistent, and open worlds. (We could very well restrict it to only possible worlds, and thus we would have a modalized version of the PCP. Jaakko Hintikka seemed to have just such an idea. But I would still say that this is far too restrictive). Note also how it solves the triviality problem:  we can indeed run an ontological argument to prove the existence of any item, But that does not mean we have proven that the item exists at an actual world. Indeed, it might very well exist only at impossible worlds. Thus it would still be nonexistent at actual worlds.

So that is where our journey ends. To be sure, we have skipped over some CPs one can find in the literature; but these are generally quite technical and beyond the scope of this post. But now we face an important question: which CP should we use? Object-theorists have given different answers to this question throughout the centuries. Meinong held to something like the NCP. Neo-Lockean object theories like that of Parsons tend more towards the QNCP. Classical item theory employs the SCP. Priest and Berto's 'Modal Meinongianism' uses the QCP.

But there's no a priori reason why we should only use one CP; for we can indeed use a variety of them, as the circumstances dictate. Indeed, this is the idea behind the pluralized item theory in Routley's later work; i.e. different sorts of CPs apply to different sorts of worlds. For instance, the SCP might apply at actual worlds, the PCP can apply at possible worlds, and the UCP can apply at some impossible worlds (with triviality now not being a problem, since we should expect some impossible worlds to be trivial). In fact under this approach the QCP becomes redundant, seeing as our plurality of CPs can do everything the QCP can. Indeed, it can do even more, since now we can determine the properties nonexistent objects have at actual worlds, a question Modal Meinongianism leaves unanswered (this is why Priest and Berto have to appeal to existence-entailing properties, as we've discussed in a previous post).

So as we can see, the Characterization Postulate is a deep and fascinating aspect of object theories that is worth careful study. There is much more to be said about the topic, but now is as good a stopping point as any.